Yay! Since Tam has evolved past the point of wishing to converse with hoi polloi, I’ll just comment here. 
Thanks to the infographic located here, I have learned that the Gulch is located smack in the heart of one of what the solons at NYT consider to be the worst places in the country to live.
Which makes it one of the best places in the country to live. 🙂
If you want to learn how to live cheap and simple, situate yourself among people who are already doing that. Well-scrubbed Eloi who think a cup of coffee should cost five bucks minimum have nothing to teach you.
“Since Tam has evolved past the point of wishing to converse with hoi polloi,”
I wish that was the reason. I miss my comments section. 🙁
Yeah, I know. I wasn’t picking on you, Tam, but I also miss your comments section.
Sort of a long winded attempt to compare apples with oranges, and rocks… All such studies are exercises in futility, since the criteria is so subjective, and the available data so unreliable.
Besides, who cares? If you like it where you are, nobody’s going to talk you out of it. LOL
And I do hope you can get your comment thing figured out, Tam. I miss it too. 🙂 Glad to see your new pup is turning out well.
Hey! Sorry, Tam. Mixed you up with Brigid… have to read both blogs more often, I guess. 🙂
Thanks for pointing that out, Joel. That little graphic, plus the composite image of North America at night (showing the lights), just about solves our retirement relocation search.
I also miss Tam’s comment section, but I’m too lazy to blog just to comment.
I could not help but notice that the more orangey-colored areas in my state, and the states right around it, seem to center around Indian Reservations.
My guess is that had the Eloi realized this, they would have either memory-holed this graph faster than you can imagine, or else brought that to the forefront in an effort to expose how racist we all are.
I notice that they seemed to have missed it, however, because neither of those things happened.
Smarter than us flyover hillbillies, indeed. I would venture to guess that these super-enlightened rays of sunshine probably couldn’t point out where the reservations are in their own state, much less mine.
Yup, there’s an enormous rez in my county. Pretty sure we’re not supposed to notice that, or at least not consider it relevant.
To tell the truth, it wasn’t Tam’s comments so much as her commenters comments that I miss. Some of them were gems, the jerks excluded.
Those’re the comments I miss, too. I can still get all of my own comments, but they rarely teach me anything. 🙁
I like this dirty bit of flyover country. I got to travel all over the world at one point and was always happy to see sunburnt, dehydrated AZ out the airplane window. I would like to advertise and expound on what a horrible place it is to live, to get more people to stay out.